UW School of Law Events Calendar

4/28/2014

Global Mondays Weekly Lecture Series - Spotlight on the Syrian Civil War

William H. Gates Hall

12:30 PM - 1:20 PM

"Prospects for accountability in the Syrian Civil War"
Frederick Michael Lorenz JD, LLM, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, UW School of Law

Hosted by the International Law Society and the Center for Human Rights and Justice

Frederick Lorenz served in the US Marine Corps for twenty-seven years as a judge advocate, including a tour as an infantry company commander. In 1992 he joined the First Marine Expeditionary Force and was the senior legal advisor for the United Nations authorized military intervention in Somalia, and returned there as senior legal advisor for the UN evacuation in 1995. In 1996 he served in Bosnia as a legal advisor for the NATO implementation force, and went on to teach Political Science at the National Defense University. After his retirement from the Marine Corps as a colonel in 1998 he spent a year as a Fulbright Senior Scholar in St Petersburg, Russia, teaching courses in international law, environmental law and US foreign policy. In 2000 he served as a United Nations legal affairs officer in Kosovo, working in the UN Civil Administration. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington and an Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the UW School of Law. He is a Senior Peace Fellow for the Public International Law and Policy Group, with missions in the Republic of Georgia and Armenia in 2006 and 2007, and three US State Department sponsored trips to Somaliland in between 2008 and 2010.

Reversing the Effects of Mass Incarceration: Ways to Reform the Criminal Justice System

William H. Gates Hall

6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest in the world, which has led some to call our current criminal justice structure a system of Mass Incarceration. This system—which contains over 2 million people in American prisons and jails—has decimated communities, especially those of color, created two tiers of justice, one for the rich and the other for the poor, and, in some instances, has resulted in government spending more money on incarceration than education.
The University of Washington School of Law and the Gates Public Service Law Program invites you to a forum on how we as a community can reverse the effects of Mass Incarceration through implementing criminal justice reforms. The forum will cover sentencing reform, prison rehabilitation programs, and prison reentry.

National Commission on Voting Rights Hearing

William H. Gates Hall
1383:30 PM - 9:00 PM

In 2005, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, on behalf of the civil rights community, convened and staffed the National Commission on the Voting Rights Act (NCVRA). The 2013-14 Commission will be composed of a seven to nine member, diverse blue-ribbon panel where each member has a commitment to voting rights. Whereas the 2005 Commission focused on voting rights and racial discrimination exclusively, the 2013-14 Commission will also examine electoral administration and reform issues because of the increased interest concerning these issues throughout the country and the need to draw similarities and differences in voter experiences depending on their state of residence. This Commission will conduct fact finding hearings across the country that will look closely at the record of discrimination, election administration problems, voter registration procedures, and other challenges that voters are facing. The testimony, facts, and data gathered in the field hearings as well as state-specific documentary research will be compiled into comprehensive reports. This Commission will write two reports: one report on voting discrimination and another on election administration and electoral reform. The reports and the records from the hearings will be made available to anyone seeking to reform or improve existing voting laws including but not limited to policymakers, advocates, and the voting public.